Abstract:Abstract.—A prominent difficulty during bottomland hardwood afforestation in the
southeastern United States is that sites are often flooded during the preferred months
of planting (January - March), which results in delayed planting (April - June) and
reduced survival. We monitored growth and survival of Nuttall oak (Quercus texana
Buckley) seedlings planted in 11 months (February through December) after varying
periods of humidified cold storage to investigate the hypothesis that seedlings held over
the summer months in humidified cold storage and planted in autumn months would
fare better than seedlings planted in late spring and summer. Results generally agreed
with this hypothesis. A trade-off is that height growth decreased with increased periods
of time in cold storage. These results suggest that although reduced height growth
can initially be expected, long-term storage over the summer months and subsequent
planting in autumn need not result in substantial mortality of Nuttall oak. Differences
in height may become less significant with each successive growing season.